Western Wisconsin

[Jeff E]

Hi there you Sappers
I have been reluctant to even look at maple trader this season. NW Wisconsin was going to be full of sad sappers.
We have worked very hard for not much sap.
My sugar has been at it's highest this year, but sap is so far about 1/4 of average. Making light and medium.

My taps are old, as I started the last week of Feb. That is hurting my volumes at this point, I suspect.

looks like our lights will go out on Monday or Tuesday. We will see.

[markcasper]

Sorry to hear about the bad yield just an hour north of here. I have did pretty well down here, well over a half gallon of syrup per tap so far. With that being said, my north facing woods that I have tapped for 6 years now has performed the worst it ever has in the last 6. It did however run about 1 3/4 gallon per tap on Thursday. My south ones did 2 gallons plus Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Yesterday was down a bit across the board. All light and medium, no dark has been made yet.

I said in February it was going to be a rough year because of the deep frost in the woods. Always are rough years when there is deep frost. My drain for my RO is still froze up yet. Never had it froze all season since I put it in 2008.

Probably just a few more days left by the looks of it.

[motowbrowne]

Sorry to hear that Jeff. I feel very grateful for the season we've had down here. I got an early start yesterday and cooked and bottled 40 gallons of syrup. That's a new record for me. I didn't get it all cooked though, so I've got about 5-600 gallons of sap to cook tomorrow. Some of it has been sitting since mid week, but it was in a bulk tank with an iceberg on top of it. I guess there were some benefits to the cold temps. I pumped that 200 into my head tank and then put everything that's come in the the last 24 hours on the remaining ice block, so everything is staying nice and cold until tomorrow.

I'm thinking tomorrow may be my last day. If the sap keeps coming in and looks good I'll finish up on Tuesday I suppose. I'm ready to be done though. Ran out of good wood a while ago and after tomorrow I'll be at .59 gallons per tap according to my cocktail napkin calculations. Not bad for a few miles of 3/16, a couple shurflo pumps, and a lot of help from a warm sugarbush.

[markcasper]

Syrup darkened up considerably overnight, my first dark syrup. Not going to quit as long as the pumps keep bringing it in and it doesn't turn stringy. If it stringy, over.

[motowbrowne]

I collected about 1/3 gpt of sap between 4:00pm Saturday and 6 pm today. As the temp started dropping today the sap flow just ended. We had a real nice afternoon cooking. It was a beautiful day and lots of great folks stopped out for a visit.

I'm gonna call it quits. I could probably make a couple more gallons if I wanted to hang in there, but I want to get a jump on cleanup. It's almost May after all, and as good as this season has been, I'm ready for the next project.

[markcasper]

There is about a gallon per tap that ran from late Saturday until late Sunday out in the woods. I heard my first frog tonight, so there won't be too many days left here. I added up my totals and if I make another 30 gallons or so, it'll put me at 3/4 of a gallon per tap. I need some good black syrup for a few customers, hopefully I can get it.

[markcasper]

Well finished up the season today, going to end up around .85 - .90 gallons of syrup per tap. I do believe that is a record. I still have to boil the evaporator out tomorrow. Everything since Monday has been commercial grade. Amazingly it boiled pretty well and filtered pretty well. The north side has been running great all week, better than anytime this year, kind of sad to shut the pump off. Sucks the deep frost hampered their flow much of the season.

[markcasper]

Went out to the woods to shut the pump off this afternoon and the north side had another load in the tank, so, not having the evaporator empty yet, I am going to pick it up and run that through quick and then drain the flue pan and get it completed and that WILL be it! The south woods all got disconnected yesterday.

We went bumming today after church to the Stockwell Sugarbush near Ellsworth that had an open house, they last cooked Tuesday and were going to go another day or two, but needed to shut down for their open house this weekend which was well attended. They told me that people from Canada have been calling out here looking for syrup already because of the short crop there.

[S.S.S]

I was told yesterday of producer in Duluth that has 4500 taps and only made 145 gals of syrup.

[markcasper]

I was told yesterday of producer in Duluth that has 4500 taps and only made 145 gals of syrup.

According to Stockwells, and assuming that I remember correct.....they knew, or had heard that some in the north only cooked twice, so certainly believable.

I talked to a large guy near Park Falls this past Tuesday and he was only at 40% of a crop and the syrup was not going through the press.